Jordan has confirmed the arrest of a suspected member of the ShinyHunters hacking group, which claims to have stolen data on every employee of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Jordanian state media on Saturday quoted an official as saying that “investigations are ongoing with the suspect about the activities of the group and the groups it is connected with”.
The arrest took place last week, the official added.
Although the suspect’s identity has not divulged by authorities in the kingdom, Reuters quoted sources as saying the arrested man was Saif Al Din Khader, who allegedly uses the hacker nickname “Rey”.
He is said to be co-operating with the FBI and helping US and global law enforcement agencies find other members of the group. One source said Mr Khader had shared his electronic devices and digital correspondence with investigators to help the FBI in its search.
“His co-operation is critical to ongoing efforts to arrest these hackers,” the source told Reuters.
ShinyHunters is a cyber extortion group that for years has carried out hacking attacks on major corporations worldwide. It is believed by analysts to comprise mainly young, English-speaking hackers.
Mr Khader’s identity, and his alleged connection to ShinyHunters, have long been known to security researchers. Last year, independent journalist Brian Krebs claimed that Mr Khader was a prominent member of Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, a network of hackers that included ShinyHunters.
Mr Krebs, who said he had spoken to Mr Khader using the messenger app Signal, quoted the suspect as saying he had abandoned hacking and was co-operating with law enforcement.
But ShinyHunters continued to carry out cyber attacks into this year, claiming credit for breaches at video game developer Rockstar Games and education platform Canvas.
In September, the group claimed to have stolen large amounts of data on every single FBI employee. A Reuters analysis of a sample of the data found extensive personally identifiable information on FBI employees, including sensitive job role, psychiatric and medical information.
FBI director Kash Patel had been hinting at more arrests after the announcement that another alleged ShinyHunters member, Pepijn van der Stap, had been detained in the Netherlands. “FBI teams are working new leads right now,” Mr Patel said last week. “More arrests are on the table.”
The FBI has refused to comment on any specific arrest or activity in Jordan, but said that it “continues to aggressively investigate the recent cyber incident allegedly involving ShinyHunters”.
“We will spare no resource in bringing each of the responsible individuals to justice,” the bureau added.
There have been hints in recent days that ShinyHunters was experiencing disruption after its announcement of the FBI break-in. On Wednesday last week, the group’s site on the dark web went offline. A request for comment sent to a ShinyHunters-linked email address on Friday received no response.
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